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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22575007">Forever...(is a long time)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento'>brokenmemento</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:41:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,896</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22575007</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Part 3, things are still left hanging in the balance. Lilith forges an unlikely alliance with the least likely of suspects.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Zelda Spellman &amp; Mambo Marie, Zelda Spellman &amp; Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Madam Spellman 2020 Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Forever...(is a long time)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The prompt for this week was "fix it" and I am not sure I did it justice. I'm one of those writers who like to stay tied to cannon to some degree in most of my stories, making it believable/in context to the narrative already provided. That being said, I tried to come up with something that could maybe be a balm over what they did last part while still staying true to character and story.</p><p>Quick warnings: There is reference to abortion and to physical/mental abuse. I wanted to put that disclaimer here, even though neither are talked about graphically.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I never thought I’d say this, but you are infinitely more likable than Mary Wardwell,” Lilith hears from beside her as she stares out with glass eyes at yet another infernal cheerleading practice. She doesn’t bother to turn around because she has an infinitesimal amount of “like” for the person saying it. </p><p>Zelda comes to sit beside her on the cool metal bleacher and stares out across the green field and those chagrin inducing cheerleaders, niece included as of late, who is most definitely not immune to irritation. Lilith eyes her warily from behind her dark shades but decides to go by the mortal’s old saying: <em> if you can’t say something nice, then flat out don’t.  </em></p><p>Satisfactorily, that seems to unnerve the woman beside her who works to uncross her legs and shift her perch. She sighs rather theatrically and Lilith wants to laugh at how much like Sabrina she’s acting, or it could be vice versa, but in any regard, the resemblance is clear. </p><p>“Oh, come now. Let's not be uncivil,” Zelda coaxes and Lilith loses it. </p><p>“Civil?” Lilith all but grounds out, removing her black frames. “You’re speaking to me about civility? I was on your doorstep practically begging you for sanctuary, which you denied me.” She sends a glare in Zelda’s direction and tries to calm her breathing. </p><p>“I understand you’ve every reason to be angry with me, but let us not forget that I most likely got shot because of your dalliance of six months as Mary Wardwell,” Zelda snaps back. </p><p>“Oh, please. You got shot and yet here you sit, pretty as a picture. Meanwhile, you have no idea the lengths I’ve had to go to in order to save my own hide. What I’ve had to do,” Lilith goes quiet. As if traipsing around behind Sabrina weren’t enough, who still insists on this blasted mortal existence, she’s had to give up practically everything. Her own body included. </p><p>The quiet grows in the space between them, although Lilith finds it stifling in a way she has never felt as a demon yet feels all the time in this skin suit of a woman. She wants to rain hellfire down on Zelda, scratch her eyes out with her nails, weep into her shoulder and plead with her to understand the plight of women everywhere. Zelda, seeming to sense this, chances moving closer on the bleachers. </p><p>Her shoulder grazes Lilith’s, a barely-there whisper of a touch. Lilith feels it all the same, so desperate for the softness of it that she lets it almost wreck her. After thousands of years, it’s not exactly as if the word has ever fit into the vocabulary of her life. Instead, it’s been filled with every antonym or counter to it. </p><p>“Sabrina told me,” Zelda says but doesn’t look at her when she does. She stares out across the field and leans forward on her palms which rest on either side of her. “Being queen and all.”</p><p>“So lovely that she’s sharing the news on this side of Hell too,” Lilith growls and Zelda finally turns to her. </p><p>“There are ancient remedies, you know. Things that can be done for instances such as…” she glances down at the flat plane of Lilith’s stomach, not yet showing any signs of the life twitching within. “...this.”</p><p>Lilith tries not to let the offer bother her, tries to show no emotion across Mary’s face, but she can feel her lip falter and tremble. The fact that she is here, again, after years of trying to get away, to be a piece alone without him. At which point in her existence of forever will she finally be free? Zelda, mistaking it for something other than it is, inches even closer. </p><p>“I’m not adept at such things. Hilda is quite the master potion maker though, if that’s the route you think you should go. I’m not trying to pressure you. It’s your decision and your right to choose. I just hope that you know you do have that: choice.”</p><p>Lilith bites off a barking laugh as the tears come and she watches the gaggle of girls walk toward the water cooler for a respite. She straightens a little at their proximity, cocks her head to the side when Sabrina makes a face up toward the two of them. No doubt wondering why the disinterested aunt is present, sitting by Lilith no less. </p><p>“Oh, I had choice alright. One. One singular choice that I absolutely didn’t want to resort to, but I think that everyone underestimates my will to live,” Lilith finally answers. She rolls her eyes, but there are still tears there. She flicks them away. </p><p>“Can you honestly blame me for not trusting you after our handful of encounters? They didn’t exactly go well,” Zelda sighs. “I was only trying to protect Sabrina, from having her become the Dark Lord’s right hand. It seems he’s hers now though.”</p><p>Lilith almost manages to feel sorry for her when her voice hits a melancholy tone. It is soon gone and back to the simmering anger underneath. By all accounts, she shouldn’t have put so much stock in Zelda being the one to save her anyway. Looking back, she was crazy for even thinking of her as an option in the first place. But as Sabrina had delivered the news about Lucifer being free, she was one the only other souls Lilith could think of being in danger like herself.</p><p>“I was being controlled by a man. You know better than anyone how that goes,” Lilith criticizes. </p><p>Zelda’s mouth drops open in shock and she brings a hand up to her throat. “We aren’t talking about me…”</p><p>“So it’s okay to talk about trauma and trust, just so long as it’s about me? Right, gotcha,” Lilith nods. </p><p>“You’re absolutely infuriating! I’m trying to extend an olive branch, metaphorically speaking.”</p><p>“I don’t need your help,” Lilith sneers. When Zelda backs away, she softens a little. “Not anymore.”</p><p>Before she has time to process, she feels Zelda’s hand stop her own, again feeling like a softness she doesn’t deserve. One she’s rarely had. She almost goes belly up, so lost in it that she doesn’t really process that Zelda is speaking to her kindly, that the woman turned her away when she needed it the most. </p><p>“I should have helped you, which I see now. But it’s too late for that, so all I can do is apologize and do better from here on out,” Zelda holds on. “You’ve guided Sabrina through the treacherous process of becoming queen and I see now that you care more than you ever let on.”</p><p>Lilith scoffs, but Zelda silences her with a calming voice. “What I should have said is that you are welcome in my coven whenever you feel we need you.” This startles Lilith and Zelda clarifies. “Yes, us needing you and not the other way around. You’ve proven you do quite well without us.”</p><p>“Somehow you managed to outsmart the Pagans without my help as well,” Lilith shrugs. </p><p>“I’ve had a lot of unusual aid lately,” Zelda’s lips quirk. “It seems we’ve formed a ragtag group of witches and warlocks alike.” Lilith moves her other hand, the one not holding Zelda’s over her stomach. Zelda follows the movement with her eyes. “You don’t deserve the hand you’ve been dealt and you already know my first offer. The other is that if you choose to see this through, I would like the honor of being your midwife.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“<em>Your </em> midwife. For you, not for him,” Zelda holds up a finger. “Women should stick together. We should have done that from the start, but I let my pride blind me on the right thing to do. Lilith, you belong with us. We both know it.”</p><p>Lilith laughs but without any mirth behind it. The tears start again and she’s glad there’s a chipper song blaring loudly to cover the sob that escapes unbidden. This is all so stupid and so is she, but she can’t bring her voice to say anything rude or hateful, instead feeling grateful for this small reprieve from the onslaught of calamity and chaos. </p><p>“Lucifer will go crazy if I tell him you’re my midwife,” Lilith says. </p><p>“Precisely,” Zelda replies with a wicked grin. Her face goes serious then and she takes hold of Lilith’s hand, brings it to her chest tightly. “I am sorry, Lilith. Truly.”</p><p>When it boils down to it, can Lilith fault her anymore for doing what she did to protect her own skin and that of her covens? Is it not similar to what Lilith did and has done for most of her life? The earlier anger tries to well up again but never gets to the surface. </p><p>“I’m not dismissing my trauma under Blackwood and I’m certainly not dismissing yours, especially any I may have inadvertently caused. Give me a chance to make it right. We will figure it out,” Zelda tries again.</p><p>“What will your girlfriend think?” Lilith finds herself saying without any permission at all. </p><p>Zelda stills a little, removes her hand from Lilith’s, and leans back. She’s shifty in a way Lilith has never seen her and it makes a positively delicious feeling run through her. Really, there is very little she doesn’t know about the Spellman clan these days.</p><p>“It's all rather new still,” Zelda says but avoids Lilith’s look of confirmation, already being privy to such. “We’re navigating it day by day.”</p><p>“And do you think she would be alright with me being with you so often? You know, as things progress with my little predicament?”</p><p>“I don’t see why she would have issue…”</p><p>Lilith licks her lips and moves closer. “You and I do have a complicated history. I’d like to think things would be very different between the two of us had we not been threatened with our respective problems.” It comes out a little heartier than she intends, a lilt in her voice that shouldn’t be there. An almost question she didn’t plan on asking.</p><p>There’s a lot stacked up behind them left to overcome. Never has any encounter with Zelda Spellman gone easily, and Lilith would never expect it to, but forging an alliance with the woman does seem to have its perks, even now. With a future chock full of uncertainty, desperate times still are calling for desperate measures. </p><p>“I’m willing to try this tentative alliance, if you plan to play by the rules too,” Lilith continues. </p><p>“Says the wild card,” Zelda answers back immediately but then glances Lilith’s way. She seems to think better of saying anything and nods tightly. “Yes, alright.”</p><p>She extends a hand out which Lilith grips firmly. They shake in the bright sunshine and the cheerful backdrop of Sabrina’s practice, a shaky but forged agreement between them nonetheless. Lilith surmises the months ahead will teach them more about one another. She feels the flare of what feels like a thousand different emotions. </p><p>Zelda may call her the wild card, but it’s she who is hard to pin down. This time, more than any before, Lilith hopes she’s not putting trust in the wrong place. After getting it wrong for many centuries, it would be nice, just once, to get it right. Despite their differences, Zelda Spellman seems like a good place to start. </p>
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